[vlc-devel] MPEG-DASH and the likes

[Frédéric Yhuel]

On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 6:17 PM, Robert Forsman
<bob.forsman at ericsson.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Aug 2013 22:59:40 +0200
> Frédéric Yhuel <yhuelf at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> But before I do, I'd like to know if it is worthwhile doing so. Smooth
>> Streaming doesn't seem to be used much in a DRM-free context, but
>> maybe I'm wrong. And what do you think of MPEG-DASH? Is it going to
>> take off? Is there a point for VLC users?
>
> There is a DASH Industry Forum with members like Ericsson, Harmonic,
> Microsoft, Netflix, VisualOn and many others.
>
> http://groupspaces.com/dashif/
>
> Since the DASH standard is so wide and open (there's no good reason you
> can't have a DASH manifest with OGG vorbis segments) the DASH-IF makes
> it their job to narrow things down like
>
> * pick specific codecs, profiles, and resolutions
> * decide best practices for ad insertion/substitution
> * decide how DRM should be done
> * develop test media (which usually is not licensed for distribution outside the group)
>
> The members of this group are mostly companies who sell client and
> server software and hardware.  Some of the individual people have the
> DASH-IF participation as their primary job assignment from their
> employer.
>
>
> There are companies working to deploy DASH (Netflix is already using
> DASH-style segments, but not DASH .MPDs).  Unfortunately, most of the
> entities spending resources to deploy DASH are doing it to make money,
> so what they will eventually deploy will be protected by DRM, and VLC
> probably won't play it.
>
> A recent mailing list thread was to organize a virtual plugfest at IBC,
> so the various client and software makers could route media between
> booths and brag about how "You can see the output of our encoder
> playing on software in these other booths.  See how well we
> interoperate?"
>
> There is a possibility that a secondary ecosystem will arise with
> content that could be rendered by free software like VLC but the folks
> investing resources in it right now are doing so because they
> anticipate a monetary return on that investment.
>

Robert, thank you very much for these interesting information from
behind the scene!

I think j-b told me about the new french TNT 2.0 with DASH support
last September:
http://www.streamingmediaglobal.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/French-MPEG-Dash-TV-Requirements-Have-IBC-Buzzing-85021.aspx

so a DASH client module might become useful for VLC users. But I don't
know what's actually going on.

Best regards,
Frédéric